One man's analysis is another's attack

In last night's Talking Points Memo (2/17/08) Bill O'Reilly said that Barack Obama's use of Deval Patrick's "Just words" soundbite was not plagiarism because it was not written. Minutes later in the Top Story segment guest Karl Rove disagreed, insisting it was.
With video.

"No question those two sentiments are almost exactly the same. But people often borrow thoughts when speaking. It happens all the time. If Barack Obama had written an article and not credited Governor Patrick, that would have been plagiarism. Just talking off the cuff like that, I think you've got to cut him some slack."

He continued

"So right now, Barack Obama is the man as far as the presidential race is concerned. Whatever he does is going to be analyzed, but he better be careful. Any misstep becomes a national story. That's not fair, but that's life in the fastest lane of all: the race to be president."

Later, speaking to Rove, O'Reilly defended Obama again. Rove pointed out that last year Obama was "caught" by Tim Russert when he couldn't expand on a broad policy item he addressed in his book (that the federal governent had to demonstrate fiscal responsibility by ending programs that don't work). Rove implied that Obama hadn't written or even read his own book, because had he done so we could presume he had thought about that issue and would have a specific answer for Russert, who asked for an example. (Obama gave an answer but Rove said that policy had been addressed and changed in 2003.) O'Reilly defended (denying as he did so) saying "Very few politicians write the book." and said he was just "clarifying." Sounds like an excuse to me.

Interesting to note in all this is O'Reilly's disparate takes on the press treatment of different candidates. As noted above, he said of Obama "So right now, Barack Obama is the man as far as the presidential race is concerned. Whatever he does is going to be analyzed, but he better be careful. Any misstep becomes a national story. That's not fair, but that's life in the fastest lane of all: the race to be president."

"You probably know that I predicted, and it wasn't a brilliant prediction, that as soon as McCain locked down the Republican nomination, the press would turn on him and begin to attack."

So Democratic candidate Obama (who is being treated by O'Reilly as the presumptive nominee although the race is far from over) will be "analyzed" but Republican McCain will be "attacked." This fits snugly into O'Reilly's storyline that the press, that monolith, wants a Democrat elected in November and paints Republicans, who have held power for years and years (to all our detriment, I might add) as victims.